Perennial

Chapter 7 -- Perennial

The rest of the day, Aether continues to escort me to whatever class I have next, even if it's to one of the two classes we don't share. It appears that for now, I'm stuck with him.

In his mind, apparently, chivalry is not dead.

Although I'll probably never admit it to his face - other than a few mumbled "thank you's" - I'm glad he takes his job so seriously. Because if he wasn't here, I would be hopelessly, helplessly, horribly lost. I'd probably starve to death in the twisted, convoluted labyrinth that is Icarus.

The only thing about his constant presence I find annoying (other than his constant presence) is that he won't shut up. He keeps talking endlessly about things that I neither know nor do I really care to know. So I just smile and nod, (which I apparently should stop doing because it only seems to encourage him) and barely pay any attention.

Which, maybe he normally acts this way. I wouldn't know. We only met today. Only, he seemed, I don't know, quieter this morning. So sue me, the shift in behavior seems a little strange. It occurs to me at some point that maybe he's just nervous, and that's why he's talking so much. But if that were true, wouldn't he have been acting like this when we first met?

Then again, what do I know? I've never made a boy nervous before. Usually I just make them feel uncomfortable and slightly threatened. (Maybe Aether is nervous because he's uncomfortable? I tend to have that effect on people.)

Something about his behavior feels off, I just can't pinpoint what it is.

I want to ask him why he won't shut up, but then I think that maybe - just maybe - that might hurt his feelings. Normally, I wouldn't care about things like that, but, believe it or not, I'm not here to make any enemies. So, why should I make my stay here any harder than it has to be? I still need him, at least for now.

I give Aether a sideways look. He's still talking. Should I interrupt him or not? His conversation is beginning to feel strained. He'll probably trail off soon, or ask me a question that I'll have to respond to.

I'm beginning to feel bad for him. He probably didn't ask to be given the job of escorting me around. He's trying so hard to be good at it, yet here I am, more concerned with getting him to stop talking than I am with listening to his tour.

"Hey." I interrupt him, hesitantly brushing his arm with my fingers.

He pauses when I touch him. "Yeah?"

"You, um, you don't have to keep monologuing if you don't want to," I say, "I don't mind."

"Oh." He sounds surprised. "Was I talking too much? Sorry. It's just... someone told me earlier that... I don't talk enough. So..."

His voice becomes quieter as he trails off.

A shot of indignation enters my veins. It's no one's right to tell you whether or not you talk enough.

"So you're trying to prove them wrong?" I ask, and then shake my head. "There's no such thing as not talking enough. If anything, there are too many talkers and not enough listeners."

He's silent for a few moments, and then he says, "I agree."

I smile up at him. "You know the saying; if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all? I think it should be, if you don't have anything to say, shut up."

His eyes widen. "Okay. Um, thanks?"

I pat his arm. "You're welcome."

"It still feels awkward not talking," he says. "Not that you're awkward! I'm the awkward one. So do you have any questions I could answer or...?"

I glance at him, then look away and frown. My eyes get lost in the sea of bodies. There are so many people here.

I hate crowds. I really hate them. I find myself sticking closer to Aether as we wade through all the students. It's difficult to fight the urge to grab his arm and clutch it like a security blanket.

I've never been good with large groups of people. It makes my skin crawl and I want to hide under a rock where it's nice and quiet and people can't see me or touch me or trap me... I know, I should be better than this, I'm a city girl. But I'm never out in the thick of rush hour, and besides, I don't think Paradis is ever as bad as this.

"Will we ever get any opportunities to leave the school?" I finally ask. The question easily comes to mind. Mostly because the possibility of escape seems very appealing right now.

He seems confused for a moment. "What do you mean?"

"Are we stuck here, on these grounds, all the time?"

"No." Aether shakes his head. "On weekends sometimes a few of us will go into town, sometimes some of the seniors get internships that take them away for part of the week, and during school vacations some of us, the ones of us with family living nearby, are allowed to leave in order to visit their folks."

"But that doesn't include ex-criminals, does it?"

"I guess not." He shrugs. "It takes a lot of good behavior before they can earn leave time. Even then, former inmates can only leave if they're invited by someone who can. It's really hard to build up that kind of trust, too. Some of the former in-uh, rehabilitated kids never earn a vacation. At least, that's what I've noticed."

It would take a while for me to build up the amount of trust where DSHA will allow me to go on a vacation, but it would also take way less time than my original plan of being the best of the best until DSHA gave me a high ranking position which I could then exploit.

"There must be a good reason for that," I say absently. "Someone must've escaped that way in the past. What happens if someone doesn't come back?"

"What do you mean?"

"What if someone doesn't like it here and just... never comes back after they've been allowed out?"

This makes Aether pause. "I don't know. I've never heard of that happening before." His voice begins to get suspicious; like he thinks I might be up to something. "Why? Are you interested in running?"

Yes. 100%. Absolutely.

But if I were really, seriously, considering this as a possible escape route, do you think I'd start asking a complete stranger all about it on the first day? That's not suspicious at all...

Still, to salvage any appearance of innocence I might still have, I decide to go for the impression of an insecure girl.

I give a nervous chuckle. "Well... it's just... The thing is... I'm not exactly the hero type."

"Last I checked there was no specific 'hero type'. Any idiot can be a hero," he says, and even though I'm not facing him, I can practically hear the firmness in his voice. He really sounds like he believes that.

I lightly snort, then mutter in a small voice, "That's just a bunch of crap people say to feel better about themselves, they like to tell themselves that ordinary boring humans are special."

"Ordinary people are special," he shoots back at me.

The pair of us seem to be the only silent people in the noisy hallway for a few seconds as he looks down at me curiously, as if he only just now realized that I'm not a big, scary, intimidating villain, I'm only a sixteen-year-old girl who acts like one. The moment passes by way too fast and yet way too slow and everything in between.

But while he considers me, I'm doing the same to him, trying to figure out whether or not he's the kind of guy who would sell your soul for a corn chip (and therefore would be more than happy to turn me in to the headmaster, or any other DSHA authority, given the chance).

It reminds me of how my brother, Jason, is before we fight. His normally calm, unassuming demeanor is replaced by something cold and calculating. His eyes would burn into my own as he would try to gauge what strategy I would try to use that time.

I imagine my own eyes must reflect Jason's during that moment Aether and I study each other.

Aether, on the other hand, lacks the intensity I've experienced from my brother. Maybe it's because I haven't known him my whole life and don't know any better, but he seems too much like a normal socially awkward teenage boy to be much of a real threat.

I decide that he isn't dangerous. This pause continues so that he can figure out whether I am or not. Just like with the guardswoman back at Midas, I wonder what he sees in me.

Am I a normal teenage super-human or a big, bad villain?

Aether apparently comes to the former conclusion. A small, hesitant smile creeps across his face. He seems to consider something else for a few moments.

"You're psychokinetic, right?" he asks, suddenly.

"Yeah?" I knit my brow. What does he care if I'm psychokinetic? Shouldn't he be more worried about whether or not I'm psychopathic? What exactly is he trying to figure out now?

"Aerokineis?" he asks.

"Chloro." As if that wasn't obvious enough from my dumb name.

"Cool." He still has a curious edge to his voice. "Psychokinesis is another class we have together. They estimate we have the same elemental skill level. Can't wait to test that out."

Yeah, me too. I'm intrigued, curious as to whether or not he really is at my skill level. I suspect he feels the same way about me.

So I smile - well, grimace, if I'm being honest - and nod.

"Any more questions before we 'lapse into silence'?" he says with the finger quotes and everything.

A thousand conspiracy theory questions come to mind. I don't ask because I don't think he'd be able to answer them. Not to mention that at this point in the conversation, it'd come across as a little random, even if I have been thinking about those questions in the back of my mind for a while now. (Like, since before I was even arrested.)

"No," I say because the question, 'How far along exactly is the government with their genetic experiments?' has nothing to do with Icarus or our previous conversation.

"Okay." He says, and we 'lapse' into an uncomfortable silence.